•A plan to create a new American-backed, Kurdish-led border force in northeastern Syria could also ignite a new phase in the country’s civil war that would pit American allies against one another.

Turkey, a NATO ally of the U.S., has threatened to invade a Syrian Kurdish enclave, called Afrin, as soon as today. The Syrian government, Russia, Iran and most Syrian opposition groups also object to any division of the country.

Separately, the Trump administration is withholding more than half of its funding to a United Nations agency that aids Palestinian refugees, arguing that the decision was intended to encourage other countries to increase aid.

_____

Photo

Credit
Djordje Kojadinovic/Reuters

• Oliver Ivanovic, a prominent Serb politician in Kosovo, was shot and killed, heightening tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, which refuses to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

That was President Emmanuel Macron of France speaking in Calais in reference to a migrant settlement there that was dismantled in 2016. Mr. Macron visited the port city to defend his immigration policies against critics who have accused him of inhumanity.

The speech was interrupted by bursts of applause, but he later drew criticism for celebrating Mass alongside a bishop who has been accused of protecting an abusive priest.

Meanwhile in Ireland, the last of the infamous church-run Magdalene Laundries for “fallen women” could soon be razed. Some want to save the Dublin building to serve as a memorial to those who suffered.

But his mark on the White House did not last. Twenty years later, in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered a major renovation that swept away the building’s Victorian touches — including Tiffany’s screen.